Almost the big day!

Our big day is drawing closer, only two days to go, so I wanted to take this time to wish all my lovely friends a very merry Christmas!

And if Christmas is not your thing, I'm sending you all my best wishes and hope you have a wonderful holiday season too xox

As is tradition, I've made up a gingerbread house to grace our table - it was inspired by many on Pinterest and was super fun. I enjoyed working on this house so much I kind of didn't want it to be finished:

With the leftover gingerbread dough, I cut out some snowglobe cookies, I'm in the middle of icing those at the moment, so hopefully I'll have something cute to share with you next time.

I don't remember if I mentioned that earlier I sent a small quilt to one of Marty's work colleagues that lives in the USA. Each year they send us the loveliest handmade cards. Well, this week we received a box in the mail from them, and it had this amazing papercraft creation inside:

Isn't it just glorious? We are so very blessed to have such lovely friends spread across the globe. 

Tonight I'm going to put my feet up, it has been a busy day - I think we're all organised for our celebrating, and I can't wait! Chatter soon! xox

Time is largely mine now ...

Hello lovely friends, we're at the end of the year when my time starts to become my own for a little bit. Tennis has finished for the season, my darling quilting ladies won't be gracing my front rooms until February, almost all of our Christmas shopping is done, and family birthdays are all behind us for now. 

Mum and I will shortly be planning menus for Christmas day, but until we start food shopping, my time is largely my own. The only self imposed deadline I have is to make up some sort of lovely gingerbread creation before the big day and I can't wait to get that started!

Because the quilting Christmas party was yesterday, I can reveal that I told you a little white lie earlier this month:

These are all the little mmmCrafts heart ornaments I made, and they weren't for little Mary at all, they were to be included in the gift boxes for my sweet quilting friends. I am making some ornaments for little Mary, but these were not hers! Some of my beautiful ladies read along here, so I didn't want to give the game away, but also didn't have much to share with you all while I was working on my secret squirrel project ;-)

I had fun putting their little boxes together with a few things I'd collected over the year:

The sweet little Quilter pins came from Jodie at RicRacSews, I think she is discontinuing her pins, so if you like them, best dash over there and grab some as they're on sale.

I also made macarons for the party, I hadn't made any in ages, so I had forgotten a few of the refinements I'd made to the recipe over time. They aren't too bad, but a bit dryer than I normally like:

I really should make them more often, they're so very delicious. Marty and Camo gobbled up the leftovers which was great, as they weren't laying around for me to nibble on.

The tree skirt I shared a little while back is finished and in my Etsy store finally, it was a relief to have that finished even though I should have it done way before now:

This is the easiest one I've ever made, so hopefully it will fill a gap for people that are nervous about the inset seams or scalloped binding featured in my other tree skirts. As always, check my Etsy store if you'd like the pattern. There is actually still time to make one for Christmas if you would like to!

Also in my Etsy store are the pre-painted wooden heads for the newest pattern by mmmCrafts - the Ghost of Christmas Present:

I have been absolutely gobsmacked and overwhelmed by the response to these little heads I've been painting. I'm absolutely happy to keep it up while people are interested, so thank you for your support!

For the last picture, in stolen moments I've been putting a few more hand quilting stitches in Lily Rosenberry. But not enough to move the hoop yet:

This is definitely going to be a long term project, and one that I'll just love. Can you see the faint red shadows around some of the berries? They're much more pronounced in person - hopefully they will disappear when I do my final wash, but I'm telling myself I'm not too concerned. Let's see if I still say that if they're still there after laundering!

Today I finally cracked open the pattern for the Morell Quilt by Di Ford Hall. I have planned that I'm going to cut a few blocks out for stitching while I'm on vacation. Lovely Chris from Quilting at the Farm has been working on the same project and we've decided to work on the quilt together. I hope I can keep up, as this will be another long term project for me, but I'm excited to give it a try!

Well that's it for me for this week, I still haven't managed to get much blog catching up and messaging done, but I keep promising myself that in coming days I will do it. Apologies for those of you that I've been neglecting. Chatter soon friends!

Closing in on Christmas ...

It's 11.30pm here, so I'm just going to get this post up on time. I've been babysitting sweet little Mary tonight, and I accidentally left the laptop in the room where she was sleeping - I didn't want to go in there until she'd gone home as she's a light sleeper and would pop up like a jack in the box if I cracked the door open!

Anyway, I've got a couple of pictures to quickly share. I've started working on a little hand quilting on Lily Rosenberry, it's all I want to do at the moment - I should have some blocks of free time this weekend to indulge my quilt loving self. I had some secret squirrel projects I was working on, and I'll share those with you later, but because they're finished I can hand quilt to my hearts content!

Because the centre area of the quilt is so busy the quilting will mostly be crosshatching and outlining, but there will be lots of wonderful opportunities for lovely quilting in the border with it's lovely open spaces. I'm really looking forward to it.

Also, I've developed a mild addiction to the mmmCrafts felt ornaments. I've decided I'll work on bunches of them for little Mary. This picture is my start on the Partridge in a Pear tree ornament set from the Twelve Days of Christmas series.

I'm going to include the year on them all so they'll be a fun keepsake for her. 

Other than hand quilting and getting ready for Christmas, I plan to put together a few block kits for the next project I want to work on - The Morrell Quilt by Di Ford-Hall. Some of the blocks will be lovely candidates for hand piecing, so I'd like to be able to take a few on holidays with me etc. I'll start making decisions on fabrics - it would be so nice to work from my stash. Let's see if I can make that happen.

That's all I have to report for today, I hope I have more eye candy for you next week! Chatter soon xox

Tree's up!

Thank you everyone for the lovely comments about our little room reno, you're all so sweet! Because that was all finished up, on Sunday I was able to finally put our Christmas tree up. Now I really feel like we're heading into the festive season.

In years past the tree has always been in the bay window, it's so nice to have it in a different place for a change. I love how it looks!

This is the new tree skirt I made this year. I had wanted to put one together for the longest time, but other things always got in the way. If you like it, I made a pattern for my Etsy store, it's selling really well, it's nice to have some options for people.

In stolen moments I've also been working on another tree skirt, this one is even easier if that's possible!

My sweet friend Bridget has helped me out a little with the binding too, when she ran out of things to do at quilting she put a few stitches in. Every little bit is appreciated, I love my quilting ladies <3 <3

And in exciting news, another of my wonderful quilting friends - Lizzy - finished basting the Lily Rosenberry quilt for me, so whenever I'm ready I can start hand quilting! I cannot wait!

So that has been my week. It seems like it has been a busy one, and it has just flown, but slowly life is queting down here, and I'm looking forward to having time to myself this weekend to catch up with you all. Big love and hugs, and chatter soon!

I've been laxe ...

I have been noticeably absent on the socials lately - and that includes responding to emails - this week has been super busy, but life will begin getting a little quieter soon, honest!

Tonight I should be painting little bead heads, instead I'm working on a few little embroidered Christmas decorations for little miss Mary:

These sweet little heart decorations are from the mmmCrafts Twelve Days of Christmas range, I'll try and make all the ornaments for her, but these ones will suffice for this year. 

I'm not a great embroiderer, so this will be a good chance to practice. I need to work on making my stitches more even, and I need to not pull the stitches so tight that I pucker the pieces. I'll get there!

One of the things that has had us so busy this week, and so tired at this end of the week is that we did a bunch of work in the lounge/dining rooms. I wanted to take out the balustrades that separated the rooms - they closed in the space somewhat and also made it look dated. And once that was done it was going to leave holes in the carpet, so I organised for new carpeting to be installed. Here are a couple of before pictures:

Eugh, I so disliked that original carpet, I was glad to see it go. And because we use our dining room most of all when we're entertaining, we decided to switch the rooms around to make use of the biggest room, and edit the furniture as well. I took a little video so you can see how it looks now - I really hope it works!

If it doesn't come thru properly I'll come back later on and add some photos.

Moving all the furniture out was exhausting. Choosing what we wanted to keep and finding home for the things we no longer want has also been exhausting. We were much younger when we moved here and had way less stuff. I have a whole new respect for people that move frequently! We have both decided we're going to work harder at paring down and finding new homes for things we don't need. I hope we can make a genuine effort to do it!

So that is a big part of what I was up to this week. I also managed to finish ALL the applique on my Lily Rosenberry quilt and I have passed it over to my lovely friend Lizzy to baste it for me, then it will be ready for me to begin hand quilting!

I'm going to sign off  here, I feel like I'm not going to be far from going to bed. This weary body needs some more rest. Thank you for being patient with me while I've been absent from blogland, but I promise I'll be visiting with you all again soon! Big love and hugs xoxox

Ohhh, the corners!

I mentioned over on Instagram that I've been very quiet on the socials lately, as I've been working super hard getting all the applique done on my Lily Rosenberry quilt.

I have placed all the corners, and now all that remains is to stitch the corners down and a small portion of the fourth border, and then this quilt top is ready to go to my beautiful friend Lizzy for basting. My excitement at being able to begin hand quilting soon is palbable! I cannot wait!

But for tonight I will leave you here - Marty and I are moving furniture around and doing a little plaster repair etc in the front rooms as there is new carpet going in on Monday. We have a busy weekend ahead of us!

Chatter soon! xoxox

Another new project ...

I'm sure I've mentioned that I have so many things I'd like to get done before the end of the year. Before Christmas really. 

One of the things is another tree skirt - it's on the way right now.

Apart from the fabric with the sweet little doggies, they're not really Christmas fabrics. And I can't even tell you how much I wish I had the foresight to cut the doggie fabric the other way around. Anyway, I think it'll still look cute.

I'm ready for quilting now, it shouldn't take long. Even though it's late, I'll probaby get started tonight.

Some of the other things I'm working on are secret squirrell projects, so it will be a little while before I can share them with you.

It's off to the sewing room for me now, I'll check back in with you really soon! xox

Almost made it!

This weekend I worked really hard to get all the applique placed on my Lily Rosenberry quilt ... I almost made it!

My goal was to have the corners in situ, but I didn't quite make it. I'm still super happy with how this top is coming along though, I just need to get busy stitching the top and bottom borders in place, and make up the corner pieces. I have other things I need to work on tonight, but let's see what this week brings.

And yesterday I finished one felt ornament from the Twelve Days series by mmmCrafts. I love these little treasures!

I'd love to get an ornament made each year for little Mary, I didn't make one last year, so I need to catch up. I wonder if I'll make as many handmade gifts after I have more than one grandbaby? Not that there are any on the way, but I'm sure they're on the horizon somewhere.

Tonight I'll finish the machine quilting on a tree skirt for a sweet quilting friend, and if I have spare time I'll start stitching down applique pieces. I have so many things I'd like to achieve before Christmas, it makes me feel a little breathless thinking about it. I just need to relax and take things one step at a time - that's the best way to move forward ...

Anyway, things to do, so I'll leave off here and chatter soon! xox